Warming to cold-weather fishing

ST. AUGUSTINE — At dawn the air temperature was a non-balmy, unlike Florida, 41 degrees.

Then it got a whole lot colder when Capt. Jim Anderson jumped his Ranger bay skiff up on plane and we went roaring up the Intracoastal Waterway at 50 miles per hour.

We were dressed more like ice fishermen than inshore anglers. But the weatherman hit it right when he said, “sunny, no wind.”

Late that day the air temperature would touch 70 degrees, he said. But at 7 a.m., it was cold enough for teeth chattering, while wearing insulated bib overalls, fleece face masks, stocking caps and hooded sweatshirts.

It felt more like a Midwest whitetail hunt than a Florida fishing trip. And we never came out of that overstuffed clothing most of the day.

First stop was a creek off the Intracoastal, a place Anderson knew well as an inshore guide. The tide was dead low — just the opposite of what we wanted. But Jim thought we might locate fish in some deep holes.

He whipped the Ranger left-and-right through a maze of skinny water where I winced at every turn, fearful the lower motor unit would glance off a sunken shell bar. But the boat ran high and true, Jim’s knowledge of the creek excelled, and in short order he shut down in a wide bend of the tidewater stream surrounded by spartina marsh.

“There’s a deep hole here, with oyster shell beds above and below the hole that’s maybe 6 feet deep at low tide,” he said while pointing to the spot with his fishing rod tip. “Sometimes at low tide fish jam in the deeper water, and maybe we can catch a few even in this cold weather.’’

The water temperature was a nippy 55 degrees as we made our first casts. Anderson opted for a CAL grub on a ¼-ounce jig head, careful to insert in the soft grub tail a small plastic rattling tube-like DOA device he’s convinced draws more fish to his lure.

“The little rattles sound like snapping shrimp, and trout, reds, flounder, everything inshore hears that as a dinner bell,” he said. “I’ve been using them for a long time, and it sure seems to make a difference, even when you have to fish lures super slow during winter.”

Ever the cynic, I opted for another style jig, grub and no rattle. But 30 minutes later the tally was three sea trout for Anderson. McNally zero.

So I tied on a shallow-running Bomber Model A, a plug that has scored well for trout and others in winter for many years.

An hour later, Anderson had caught a couple of more trout and a small redfish using the same CAL lure and rattle. McNally still drew a blank. So I tied on a “Zara Spook” top-water plug, thinking slick, in-flowing and warming creek water may turn on fish, and the zigzagging plug would cover a lot more water than a jig.

Still nothing, while Anderson boated a trout and a redfish.

Admitting defeat, I tied on a ¼-ounce grub jig as we ran to another creek a few miles up the Intracoastal. Entering the tidewater stream we noted the tide had reached high flood, turned and had started to fall. Water temperature had risen to over 56 degrees.

We worked a long-and-straight shoreline of spartina grass. Anderson said the creek area was deep, up to 10 feet in spots, and there were a number of oyster high spots spotted through the deep water.

First cast with a jig I barbed a redfish that plucked the lure motionless off bottom during an ultra-slow retrieve. Then I nailed a keeper flounder, using the same super slow retrieve. Jim caught a pair of trout, and I added a slot trout to the live well.

The fish were noticeably more aggressive in the ever-so-slightly warmer creek, and in the ever-increasing flow of a falling tide. And for the first time that day we saw several small schools of tiny glass minnow-like baitfish flush at the surface, scattering from predators feeding below.

Herons and egrets dotted the spartina grass shorelines. They were actively feeding, a noticeable difference from their attitude at dawn when they were motionless and hunkered down tight, looking like they needed overcoats and ski masks.

The marsh was waking up with warming conditions, and the fishing was improving.

Other fishermen were waking up, too. The last creek we worked had five other boats in it. Water temperature had risen to over 57, two full degrees higher than at dawn. That can have a huge effect on fish activity, since some species can discern water temperature variances of up to 0.01 degrees.

Once again we worked a deeper outside bend of the creek, and in a very short time Anderson added a 2.5-pound flounder to our tally. We caught several more trout, and added a slot-size redfish.

“Not bad for a cold February day,” said Anderson back at the ramp as we loaded his boat. “It sure would have been easy to stay home, thinking it was too cold to go fishing.’’